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Staff promotion: Is ‘potential’ enough?

Give your employees the tools and training they need to succeed, and you’ll virtually ensure that your rising stars will, indeed, become superstars.
Sally McKenzie, USA

Sally McKenzie, USA

Thu. 19. February 2009

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Anyone who has managed employees for any length of time has seen it. The rising star with all the potential to succeed is promoted to a new position and fails. Why does it happen? How does it happen? It’s agonizing for the employee, and it’s certainly no treat for the doctor either. After all, this is someone you were sure you could count on. She/he showed all the signs of being truly excellent. But, as many dentists have discovered, a promotion is no guarantee that your rising star will become a superstar. Just ask Dr Morton.

Carolyn was a great member of the team. She seemed to bring the whole 'package'. She was bright, energetic and enthusiastic. She was good with the patients and great with her teammates—the kind of employee who has tremendous potential, and Dr Morton was convinced that this rising star could be a superstar if she were given the right opportunity.

When that opportunity arose, Dr Morton felt confident promoting Carolyn to office manager. She had been with the practice for just over a year and had indicated an interest in taking on additional responsibility. But it was a move that both Dr Morton and Carolyn would eventually regret.

Before her promotion, Carolyn’s title was business assistant, but her role had been more of 'helper' to the previous office manager who exercised considerable control and was careful to dole out information only on a need-to-know basis. Nonetheless, Dr Morton felt confident that Carolyn would rise to the challenge.

Given that a new person would be taking over as office manager, Dr Morton thought this would be an ideal time to implement a few administrative changes. She wanted Carolyn to take the lead in shoring up some key practice systems, including: overhead, personnel policies, cash flow, and recall for starters. Yes, indeed, Carolyn was going to be busy in her new role.

Sink or swim

For Carolyn, this was definitely a case of “be careful what you wish for, because you just might get it.” Certainly, the salary was appealing. She wanted additional responsibility and the chance to tackle new challenges, but Dr Morton didn’t mention any plans to train her in the new position. She and Carolyn talked briefly about a few system changes she wanted Carolyn to pursue, but there was nothing specific. What’s more, Carolyn kept waiting for a list of job duties and responsibilities for the office manager position. Surely, there was something in writing, but no job description existed.

Caroline assured herself that she’d been on the team long enough to understand how the office worked. She had a good handle on Dr Morton’s preferences. But the nagging questions remained. How would she develop these policies and systems? Who would guide her? Where would she start? What exactly was she supposed to do? It was her responsibility now, time to sink or swim. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t be long before Carolyn felt the pinch of cement shoes that would eventually drag her under.

The first few months were tumultuous. Carolyn was winging it. The doctor said she wanted better management of cash flow, so Carolyn implemented a new collections policy. She was intent on proving her worth by increasing revenues immediately. The policy itself was not the problem, rather it was the approach. Carolyn did not implement a system to inform patients in advance of the policy change. Not that she would have been against doing so, it simply never occurred to her because she had neither the training nor the experience necessary to understand the importance of taking such steps. Consequently, many patents were surprised and more than a little irritated that they didn’t get at least some explanation for why the policy was changing.

What’s more, Carolyn is very task oriented, which can be a tremendous strength for someone in this type of position. However, without proper coaching and feedback, in some cases, that strength can become a serious weakness. It is not uncommon for task oriented individuals to be so focused on the job that needs to be done that they become completely oblivious to the fact that they may come across as bulldozers leveling anything in their paths.

Carolyn didn’t have the benefit of coaching or feedback. Consequently, in her mind, a policy is a policy and it is up to the office manager to enforce it. Patients, needless to say, were not taking her approach well. Not only had the new rule been sprung on them, but the new office manager was utterly and completely inflexible in her enforcement of it. As you might imagine, the phones began to ring and Dr Morton found herself busy fielding calls from unhappy patients.

Patient relations were strained, and staff relations weren’t much better. Co-worker Carolyn, that nice girl who was originally hired to help out at the front desk, was now Queen Carolyn, handing down edicts and unilaterally defining policies. Worse yet, she would immediately go on the defensive should someone hint that her approach could use a little softening. Her standard response was, “Well, I’m the office manager, and Doctor expects me to get these things done.”

In spite of her bravado, Carolyn was not holding up well under the pressure. The stress was taking its toll. How could her dream job be turning into such a nightmare? The staff was ready to mutiny. Dr Morton was genuinely concerned but chalked up the growing problems to that ol’ learning curve thing. She looked the other way and assumed that things would eventually work themselves out. It never occurred to Dr Morton that perhaps she should have taken steps to better prepare Carolyn, the staff, and the patients for this change, or that Carolyn desperately needed more guidance, direction and feedback from the doctor.

Over the next 12 months, staff turnover spiked, and Carolyn herself eventually quit in frustration. It was a painful lesson for Dr Morton, who came to realize that just because someone is bright, energetic, enthusiastic and seemingly competent in one position is no guarantee that she/he will succeed in another.

Where things went wrong

In Dr Morton’s case, she assumed that because Carolyn was smart and confident she could 'figure out' her role as office manager. After all, she’d worked for the previous office manager. But Carolyn was never given a job description. Consequently, she was making up her duties as she went along. With little direction as to what the expectations of the job were, she was left to interpret her responsibilities as best she could. Every employee must have a job description that clearly defines the job, spells out specific skills needed for the position and outlines precisely the duties and responsibilities. A job title is not a job description.

Guidance from Dr Morton was vague at best. For example, she told Carolyn that she wanted her to improve cash flow, but there were no specifics. Carolyn, for her part, would take the ball and run with it. In some cases, that can be a tremendous employee strength, in others it can be disastrous. In this case, Carolyn began unilaterally implementing policy with little input from staff and the doctor.

Direction from the doctor in the form of ongoing feedback is critical, especially for a new employee or an existing employee in a new position. Constructive feedback given regularly—daily if necessary—helps employees continuously fine tune and improve the manner in which they carry out their responsibilities. It’s also the dentist’s most effective tool in shaping and guiding employees into high-performing team members.

In addition, Carolyn was never offered any type of office manager training. It doesn’t matter how bright, how energetic, how seemingly good with patients your rising star is, if this person does not receive training, she/he will very likely fail. In fact, the No. 1 reason why practices don’t reach their potential is the No. 1 reason why teams don’t reach their potential—lack of training.

Although it was completely unintentional, Carolyn was set up to fail. In addition to zero training in her new position, she had never been given any real management duties before being tapped for the role of office manager. She was promoted based on her potential, not proven experience. Yes, she’d been a business assistant who seemed competent in that role, but she’d not been given enough management duties to prepare her for the demands of the new position. She’d been given the title, the salary, and the authority, but she was tossed into the role with no training and very little guidance.

This bright, energetic person with great potential couldn’t single-handedly overcome the odds. And the negative impact of her failure reverberated across the practice. Patients left, staff turnover spiked, Carolyn quit in frustration, and Dr Morton posted what was financially her worst year in practice.

Great 'potential' is no guarantee. Give your employees the tools and training they need to succeed, and you’ll virtually ensure that your rising stars will, indeed, become superstars.

Contact info

Sally McKenzie can be reached at +1 877 777 6151 or at sallymck@mckenziemgmt.com.

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